We already have a thread about e-sangha updates, but I thought I would start another here to reiterate some important messages:

All posts disparaging e-sangha will be removed. Some of you who responded to those posts (in other threads) may also see your posts removed. This is not anything against you, just to keep the flow of discussion on topic and your post may no longer be relevant since the disparaging comments will be removed.

PLEASE keep all comments about e-sangha toward your ability or not to log-in, updates you might have from Leo or another admin. over there, or for suggestions on how we might be able to help them get back online!

Thank you!

On another matter, we have many new members who have joined us who were regular participants at e-sangha. You are most welcome here! We would like for you to even stay and participate in our sites here and over at e-sangha, once it is back up again.

But for those of you who practice and post mostly in Vajrayana and Mahayana forums, this is a primarily Theravada forum. You are still most welcome, just keep in mind that topics should be related to Theravada, Theravada and Mahayana comparisons, and General Buddhism discussions. Topics and posts which are stricly Vajrayana, Mahayana, Zen, etc. with no relation to Theravada or the Pali Canon will be removed.

We have a sister site set-up which is for the discussion on the Dharma of the Mahayana and Vajrayana over at:

http://www.e-sangha.com/We need your help to restore E-Sangha site.How can you help E-Sangha - If you are an expert in recovering lost data or you are working in a professional data recovery centre, please do email me at esangha@gmail.com . Our hosting provider refuses to take responsibility for the massive loss of data in E-Sangha. If you are an attorney or know any attorney who can represent us out of goodwill, please do email me. Thanks.

Metta,Retro.

"When we transcend one level of truth, the new level becomes what is true for us. The previous one is now false. What one experiences may not be what is experienced by the world in general, but that may well be truer. (Ven. Nanananda)

“I hope, Anuruddha, that you are all living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.” (MN 31)

I was posting to e-sangha on a more or less daily basis when it went down, then switched to the Buddhist Community website for a week or so. I quit that site last week after malware warning from my security software (Avast) kept alerting me to a trojan jumping off that site as well. I alerted other members and Leo, but after a week of no responses, decided to play it safe and quit for the time being.

I suspect there is something wrong at www.buddhist-community.com as well as e-sangha -- have no clue if these would be related -- but since no other members at Buddhist Community reported similar problems, and since Leo seems to have his hands more than full at the moment, it may just be a problem with my computer(s), although I did scan and check and found nothing problematic. I am not enough of a techie to know one way or the other, however.

I hope these problems get ironed out soon. In the meantime, I am happy to discover so many of you here at "The Wheel".

I think there might be something with Buddhist Community too. I notice that none of the recent members, going back about two weeks or so have any avatar pictures. All the members' pictures you see are the "old-timers" who uploaded pics. before the problems.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

I tried to join the Buddhist Community twice and had no success. The email that was supposed to be sent to join never came. I checked to make sure I had entered the correct email address and I had. I believe there is something wrong with the Buddhist Community. It seems someone has intentionally attacked both e-Sangha and the Buddhist Community. I hope Leo can trace who hacked into them and take legal action. I know a lot of people dislike e-Sangha but to intentionally attack it is just wrong. I miss e-Sangha and I am sad Leo is having to go through all of this. The fact that someone intentionally attacked e-sangha makes me sadder. E-Sangha is my sangha, and it is for a lot of others as well who have no access to teachers. It's a shame someone had such hate in their hearts they felt the need to harm it.

Hi DavcutsIndeed, the outage of e-sangha is a great tragedy for many Buddhists worldwide.Feel free to hang out here at Dhamma Wheel, and I hope that until e-sangha rises from the ashes, we can support you in your practice.metta

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

"As Buddhists, we should aim to develop relationships that are not predominated by grasping and clinging. Our relationships should be characterised by the brahmaviharas of metta (loving kindness), mudita (sympathetic joy), karuna (compassion), and upekkha (equanimity)."~post by Ben, Jul 02, 2009

christopher::: wrote:Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

davcuts wrote: I hope Leo can trace who hacked into them and take legal action. I know a lot of people dislike e-Sang ha but to intentionally attack it is just wrong. I miss e-Sangha and I am sad Leo is having to go through all of this. The fact that someone intentionally attacked e-sangha makes me sadder. E-Sangha is my sangha, and it is for a lot of others as well who have no access to teachers. It's a shame someone had such hate in their hearts they felt the need to harm it.

christopher::: wrote:Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

Would it not perhaps be better, to make a brandnew start? Soon?

While taking legal action?

I would also have thought that restoring from an older backup would have been the next logical step, but maybe there weren't any older backups being kept. I don't know. Since it's been down so long, I can only assume that the only working database they had is toast. A fresh install might be the only option at this point.

As to legal action against the hosting provider. Nothing will come of this. It's the webmaster's job to backup their own data unless the host specifically provides that service. Most hosting Terms of Service do not allow you to sue for lost data. The only possible legal recourse would be against the hackers, if you could find them.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

poto wrote:As to legal action against the hosting provider. Nothing will come of this. It's the webmaster's job to backup their own data unless the host specifically provides that service. Most hosting Terms of Service do not allow you to sue for lost data. The only possible legal recourse would be against the hackers, if you could find them.

And then if the hackers are in one country, such as Russia and Leo is in another, Singapore and the server and hosting is in the U.S., it would be difficult if not impossible to sue since there would be no venue or jurisdiction for the court.

I think part of the reason for the delay may be that it is just so heart-breaking for Leo and the administrators to start all over from scratch. It was the largest English language Buddhist forum (that I know of) that ever existed. It had something like 1.4 million posts and about 60,000 members. Can you imagine how long it will take to build that base up again? So they are probably still searching for ways to restore it to the level it was at.

christopher::: wrote:Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

My understanding is that there was one, but then the host over wrote it with a corrupted copy. It's curious that the Way Back Machine archive also can't pull out older archives of it, either.

My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.

christopher::: wrote:Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

My understanding is that there was one, but then the host over wrote it with a corrupted copy. It's curious that the Way Back Machine archive also can't pull out older archives of it, either.

Odd that a back-up was not stored separately from the original as a precaution against just this sort of thing. As far as the Way Back Machine is concerned, that was a problem I noticed months ago. I tried using it to look at threads that had been deleted from ES and I found that threads and sections that I knew still existed were not accessible via the WBM.

If this was malicious hack by a disaffected user(s) - and gawd knows they are out there - I hope this is an opportunity for the ES powers such as Leo and Namdrol to reflect upon past policies whether they are able to recover the old data base or are going to have restart from scratch.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.